Iran Monitoring US Military, to Respond to Threat to Interests Anywhere in World: Top general

Iran’s top military commander says Iranian Armed Forces have a full intelligence command of United States military movements in and far beyond the region and will respond to any move that endangers Iranian interests at any location in the world.

Major General Mohammad Baqeri, the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, said in a statement on Friday that the Iranian Armed Forces routinely monitored every big and small move made by enemy forces.

“The Islamic Republic’s Armed Forces… consider as a permanent, unchanging task on their agenda [the preservation of] a thorough intelligence command of the status, location, tactics, and movements of [Iran’s] enemies big and small, including America’s adventurist, terrorist, and antihuman military, in the region and remote territories,” Major General Baqeri said.

The Armed Forces “will give an appropriate response to any miscalculated move by those forces against… Iran’s national interests anywhere in the world,” the general added.

The statement was issued on the eve of Khordad 3 (May 23), the date on the Iranian calendar when the Iranian military liberated the city of Khoramshahr from invading Iraqi forces in the Iran-Iraq War in 1982.

It also came amid reports that the US military may attack a number of Iranian fuel tankers carrying gasoline to Venezuela in the Atlantic Ocean. Reuters reported last Thursday that the US was weighing measures to confront the Iranian vessels, and other reports said the US military had dispatched warships and a patrol aircraft for that purpose.

Iran has not deployed its military to accompany the tankers but has warned against any act of aggression against the vessels, which are conducting normal business and are sailing to Venezuela through international waters.

The US has imposed rounds of sanctions against Venezuela in an attempt to strangle its economy and unseat the elected government of President Nicolas Maduro. The sanctions have hit the country’s energy sector, and it has recently faced shortages of fuel.

On Thursday, and following the reports about potential US aggression, the Venezuelan army said it would dispatch military vessels and aircraft to escort the Iranian ships.